What No One Hears
by Falling Starlight
Summary: No one knows what I'm really saying. They probably wouldn't get it if they did listen anyway. They hear me, but they will never understand.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** _I don't own the MR characters, I am not JP, and I am not pretending to be._

Everyone says I talk too much. They think the scientists at the school messed me up, in my head. I hear them talking. Jeb, when I was so much younger, even said that I would always be a little different. Ter Borcht, that jerk from h-e-double-toothpicks, said something "clearly went wrong with my thought processes". Well, I know that something was wrong from the very beginning. I remember, even if everyone else forgets, because I was autistic. That's why the scientists took me as a two-year-old baby and started poking around in my brain trying to connect my rational thoughts to my emotions and vocal cords. They didn't count on me starting to talk in full sentences with an adult's vocabulary before I was even three.

I sometimes think that might be what captured Jeb's attention, more than Max kicking a white-coat in the ribs hard enough to break through to their lungs when she was six or Fang changing the color of his wings at will before settling on black. Funny how no one remembers those things anymore, except me. And maybe Angel, if she's ever decided to look in my mind. But she told me once that since I say so much all the time, she only ever looks into my head when she thinks I'm breathing so quietly she's not sure if I'm asleep or dead. I guess I should be glad she doesn't have to share my pain.

I know what I say doesn't always make sense, and I can rant and go on and on, but just because people can hear my words and see my lips moving doesn't mean that they're actually listening. And why should they? I'm only eleven.

I'm only a little girl, who can't understand.

I'm only the reason that everyone is still alive.


	2. Dreaming Up the Past

**Disclaimer:** _If I was JP, I'd own these characters, be rich, and not be writing fanfics for my own series. Unfortunately, I have only one thing to my name: my name._

I'm almost dreaming again. I'm trying to dream up the past. One thing no one knows, not even my flock family, not Jeb or those dumb white coats or those terrible Erasers, is that I not only can touch things and know about the person most attached to that item, but I can figure out _myself_ that way too. I know where I come from now. I know who my parents are, and every little thing the white coats did to me, and I swear that as soon as I'm able to get to them alone, they'll wish they'd never picked up a test tube, let alone deprive me of the family I could have had. It's working. My head is filling with clouds…. I feel foggy. What happened? What happened? ... what happened?...

_"She's so beautiful! Look at her. Her gorgeous face!" Smiling. My mother is smiling. I can see her, barely. I'm a new born, I should be crying, but I'm still. My tiny acute senses feel something is wrong. My father… I don't know where he is. There. Sitting by my mother, he's just beaming, nearly crying. Then I'm being whisked away. My tiny ears hear the murmurs of they doctor voices…_

_"We're so sorry. Somehow your child didn't make it," they lied. White coats, everywhere. They're rushing me out of the room._

_"Her eyes… They looked at me," my mother stuttered. My father put his arm around her, grief written all over his face. I look rather like him. Same shape eyes and mouth, but I have my mother's small nose and dark color of my eyes._

_"How could this happen?" my father disbelievingly questioned. "We did everything you said! We even got that new shot, you said it was perfectly safe for unborn children, that it would help her!" He was close to hysteria in his anger._

_Now the doctors had taken me too far to hear anymore. Now it was white all around. Blinding, bright, unfriendly white. Now a smell that gave me shivers…._

I jolt awake in the dead of night—well, I suppose that's when it is. There's no light anywhere. That dream was how I learned of my ability to discover my _own_ past, without looking at the memories of the others. I revisited it so often that I was certain that I could play it in my head without ever being asleep. It always took so long to get a new dream anyway. When would the next one come? What would it be?

When I was little and couldn't sleep I'd remember my favorite time: the last birthday I had when it was just Jeb and the whole flock and me together. I was turning eight, so I got eight balloons that Gazzy had carefully written an eight on each of them, proud for having just learned his numbers. And I got to eat three pieces of the cake Iggy helped make with Jeb, all of them were corner pieces too! Now that memory is almost too painful to think about. So now I relive my past. Over and over, in case the dreams don't come back, I will never forget why I need to hunt down and make every last cruel, idiotic, hateful and hate-able white coat out there die the miserable death they deserve. Twice. And in the case of one, maybe even three times. Because he is the one who let them hurt me in the first place.

_"She's not talking. She's almost two, yet she never cries or throws tantrums or talks. Why?" A new man with a fresh-shaven face was asking the questions. I knew he was different from the other white coats with an "interest" in us, but he was still wearing the coat. So I was careful not to let him know I could hear him talking in front of my crate. "…I demand to be given her files. There must be some clue there. Have you done a brain scan?" he was continuing interrogating the apprentice of the elderly white coat who had the day off._

_"Well, I'm not authorized to release the files of any of the experiments. They are highly confidential, and I'm only allowed to add my own reports—" the apprentice was nervously stumbling._

_"Haven't you asked __**why**__ she hasn't developed the same level of emotional and verbal skills of he others? What if it later affects her motor skills? We can't have damaged experiments, not ones as expensive…" the new man said. I listened quietly and discreetly until finally the apprentice conceded to peek into the files._

_"Oh. Well, she actually has been scheduled for an operation today, hey want to cure her autism. Dr. Shalk should be here any moment," the apprentice admitted._

_"Alright then. I will oversee the procedure. Maybe convince them to actually advance her verbal skills and thought processes so she can catch up to the others quicker," the new man said. I barely registered it. The apprentice had said "Dr. Shalk" and that was all I needed to know to know I may never see this place again. I began memorizing the fell of the cage around me, not to escape, but in case I never came back to my only known home._

_"As long as you don't tell anyone I let you see the files I couldn't care less," said the apprentice, obviously over-confidently due to his relief that the most stressful moments of his life were over. The new man ignored him._

_"Come along sweetie," he said to me, reaching and pulling me out of my cage. I would have resisted, but he smelled so nice, not like the anti-septic that everyone else did, but something clean and soapy. I hugged his shoulder/_

_"Careful Dr. Batchelder," warned the apprentice. "Maybe you should wait for the guards. You know the avian hybrids can be a handful."_

_"She doesn't have any weapons now so I think I'll be fine," Dr. Batchelder answered shortly. I smiled and thought how wrong he was. I looked at his stiff ID card around his neck and knew if I pulled at it hard enough, he would choke into unconsciousness. And the letters were pretty and fun to look at too! An upside-down candy-cane, an almost-circle split by a line through the top half, then a line attched to a regular circle… J…e…b…_

I'm not tired at all still, but I'm not about to go through anymore memories at the moment. _Jeb. Pain. Dark._


	3. Fuzzy ThoughtsNot the Good Kind

**Disclaimer:** _Of course I'm not Jimmy Patt, and of course I'm not trying to steal his characters, which is why this is called a "Disclaimer". DUH!!!_

I woke up strapped to a table. _Dang it, where am I???_ I feel like the way people on reality TV talk about hangovers, when Max thinks I'm watching Discovery Channel. How weird, I've never even liked the look of alcohol….

Jeb walks in. I half pay attention to what he's saying, but now my mind if flashing back again, to when I was younger, before we left the school the first time….

_"Look at you! Look at you!" Jeb was smiling at my feeble wing flapping in the courtyard. "You're just like a bird, just as good as the others!" The scientists were letting Jeb hone our flight abilities, I somehow knew. But it was fun all the same, even if it was just a test. Stupid test at that._

_"Can I be a birdie? Can I fly like that" I was eager to know._

_"Maybe not right now, but really soon, okay sweetie?" Jeb promised._

_"All the other kids fly better. All of them can flap harder, I want to get strong and big. Why am I so dumb?" I pout._

_"Honey, you're doing so good!" Jeb encouraged me. He opened his arms and I used my wings to help me jump high up into them for a hug. "You're doing great! In fact," he whispered, like a secret—which he knew I liked, having a secret—"I think I can help you."_

_"How how how?" I asked anxiously. His head leaned closer and then zoomed away as I was thrown into the air._

_"Open your wings! Coast!" Jeb half laughed, half reprimanded. I did. I was five feet from the ground and _staying there_!!! It was such an amazing feeling, and as I skidded to a sloppy halt I ran back to Jeb shouting "Again! Again!"_

_No such luck. The others were there first saying "Me next!" "No, ME!" Angel was being lifted up by Max, always the favorites. She commanded imperiously, yet still sweetly somehow, "First me, then Max. Then me again." Jeb chuckled._

_I walked the rest of the way. Fang was the only one not clamoring to get thrown skyward in our hero's strong arms, but I knew he wanted it just as bad as anyone—anyone but me. I wanted it to be another secret. So I stood by Fang and watched the others get tossed high up, over and over, more falling than the gentle gliding I was sure I'd achieved. I watched another toss, and another, until my friends and their wings became indistinguishable from the trees beyond the fence, and Jeb's face stayed clear until I came drifting back to consciousness…._

I came from my zoning out to find Jeb saying, "It's all just a test, Max. All of it." I have had enough of Jeb to last a lifetime. I was special. I _am_ special. Just as great as Max, because he told me so. Where would they be without me?

Nowhere.

Now Jeb is leaving. I wonder if I should tell the others. I should prepare myself to, just in case. Time for some more dreaming….

**A/N: Oh my gosh, thanks to all of you, I really haven't been a very consistent writer but I am so going to write more often now! I don't deserve your patience whatsoever and I'm at a loss to realize why you are even bothering to read this!!! But, I have the next 2 chapters planned out really well in my head, and that'll probably be the end of this story for now. But maybe not, who knows? ****DON'T BE AFRAID TO BUG ME ABOUT RUSHING THE NEXT CHAPTER, RUSH ME ALL YOU WANT, I NEED TO BE BOTHERED ABOUT IT OR I'LL FORGET!!!**


	4. I'm Always Right

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of these characters. Do not sue me for that, I will not take it well.

Nothing goes the way you expect it to. Ever. Not if you're me—that's right, I am almost 100% certain that it is being _me_, _myself_, that causes things to go awry; being a human-avian hybrid freak has nothing to do with it.

I thought we were all dying. I thought we were going to be eaten alive by Erasers. And I honestly thought that they were telling the truth when they told us that Anne's house, and New York, and pretty much our whole lives of the more current times were just a chemically induced dream. Shocker, it wasn't even close to the truth.

Not to mention Ari's with us now. I can almost taste the evil thoughts Fang is thinking towards him while we soar in the clean air again. Life just sucks all around. I want to live in another time.... Any other time....

_It was dark. And colder than usual. The tiles I had rarely felt were freezing the soles of my feet, which were very sensitive because of not having a pair of shoes. It was to be expected--what did the white coats care for our feet? All they cared about was our wings. Even at my young age, I accepted this was a solid fact in my life that would likely never change. Even if this crazy plan _was_ going to work._

_Jeb was risking his life (and ours, but what was new about life-threatening situations to us? every breath we took had to be stolen carefully at all times, every minute of our lives.) to get us out. _Out_. What a lovely word. Not just out of a cage, but _out_. My mind could hardly take it in, but I had to if I was going to save us all._

_My wings were so strong, and _I_ was so strong, and I had to be especially strong for Jeb and Max and Fang and everyone. Jeb, and I led Angel and Gazzy down the long corridor, glowingly bright despite the choking dark. Maybe because of it? I had to concentrate on not telling Jeb any of the thoughts rushing around in my head. He had told us how important it was to stay absolutely silent. Our footsteps made no noise as we crept along. How long could I keep from blurting out my worries?_

_Just long enough, I had to convince myself. Just long enough._

_Jeb unlocked the door where Max, Iggy, and Fang were kept. They separated them because they were older, "more developed". More _interesting_ to most of the white coats, was more the reason. To all of them, actually. All but Jeb. Jeb told me all about the things that would change with me, if I let my powers grow. He said I'd be so interesting, so special. I could be so special, l could save everything. I could save the world if I put my mind to it. More important, I could save my friends that we were saving tonight—he said he knew I could save them again and again, because I was always going to make the right decisions no matter what._

_I loved it when Jeb told me that. And I told everyone to trust me and trust him. And of course they did. Jeb was my secret white coat friend. He wore no white coat that night though. We all wore thick black outfits, for more camouflage. I was glad for a layer of clean-scented warmth between my skin and the cold air that usually gave me goose bumps. I never got used to the cold, cold air...._

_Now all seven of us—six winged kids, and one wonderful Jeb—were running as quietly as we could to the back loading entrance, where all the test-tubes and microscopes and tweezers and science-y devices too terrible to think about were brought to the School, as we newly had learned to call it from Jeb._

_There was a truck waiting for us, and Jeb promised that the place we were going was amazing and perfect. We'd never have to be afraid again. We could fly, and eat and wear shoes, or not wear shoes. We could be _us. _It sounded perfect._

_Like a dream._

_We were all dreaming of it. Maybe that was how we didn't notice Jeb's young son, a young, _human_ boy, crawl out of the front seat to watch us, the bird kids he was never allowed near before, clamber into the truck. No one noticed him wander off to look at a neat rock near the door wed just come running out of._

_No one noticed when he didn't ask for any bathroom breaks or food or for someone to tell him a story the whole way to our first rest stop on the way to our safe place. Jeb and all of us escapees were too preoccupied to notice what we weren't noticing. By the time we realized his absence, we were on our second day of travel._

_It was too late. Jeb told us that if we went back, we'd be going back forever. No one wanted that. So the small blond-headed Ari was left alone to whatever fate he would meet; not even our thoughts were with him...._

It was almost time to stop flying. We were almost where we needed to be. I wonder if I'll need to make any decisions soon that are going to be important if I'm right. I can't make the wrong decision though. For all the lies Jeb has told us, he never told one to _me_, just to the flock as a whole. Jeb knew what he was saying: I make all the right decisions. I don't need to worry about that, just about what is going to happen _because_ of my decisions.

If I'm calling the shots, I need to do it well.


End file.
